I loved to visit the museum as a kid. Every summer, we’d make multiple trips to downtown Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science. The guests in ticket lines snaked through a gigantic mall-like lobby with full size dinosaur fossils strung up above, echoes of conversations interrupted by the coin bank shaped like a sabertooth tiger’s head which snarled anytime you fed it a quarter.

I explored that place like I was on patrol. My route began with the space exhibits on the first floor - the fun and flashy place to start. I think I played too many video games as a kid, so I went there first because this room felt almost like an arcade.

Once that was out of my system, we rode the escalators to the third floor. The signs said it was the third floor, but it may as well have been the three-hundredth. The glass barriers up there claimed to be safe, but anyone could look through them and see the speck that used to be that sabertooth tiger. I suppose falling off of cliffs is part of our natural history, so this might have been an unspoken exhibit they kept on display.

You know how the rest of the tour goes. Your museum is not that different. Dinosaurs, the human body, an ancient civilization or two, biology, anthropology, gift shop. I loved them all, but one, the wildlife diorama halls, sunk the deepest hook into my young heart.

Why do I remember this wing at all? There was nothing “youth-oriented” about the space. It always felt more like a bowling alley on a lonely Thursday night than a collection of scenes from kingdom Animalia. Each diorama was a different lane. These pins are migrating to their nesting grounds, and if you look closely, you can see a pride of balls stalking them from the bushes.

At best, some dioramas had little plaques with buttons, and those buttons controlled spotlights overhead that illuminated certain animals. You became a techie for the most neurotic stage director who wouldn’t let you do anything but wait for his cue. The second act hinges on the American Bushtit’s solo, so if you want any chance of getting into NYU, you better keep your thumb over the “on” button.

There was nothing to “do” in these halls, but there was also nothing to “be”. Looking back, that’s why I felt such peace there. Sitting in a dark room, in total silence, the only light coming from a diorama of a polar bear.

Bliss. Sweet, sweet dissociative bliss.

That feeling was a meteor, and it knocked me out of whatever orbit I’d been on before. There was only one hall of animals at the museum, but the dark rooms, the silence, and the transcendental imagery can be still be found. I just happened to rediscover it at the movies.

Movies that Feel Like Movies (MTFLM) is a new series on AMoYT. Every other week, we’ll be exploring the visual elements of a specific film. I aim to answer the following questions:

What are we seeing? Why are we seeing it? Why does it work?

To be clear, these are not meant to be film “reviews”. I have no interest in quantifying the “good” or “bad”. I’m not an expert, but neither are you, so let’s cut out the faux-academia. That’s the cool thing about subjectivity; you can splash about in the middle of the pool without worrying about staying in one of those pesky lanes.

Those dioramas at the museum allowed me to crawl outside of myself and into ecosystems I would likely never visit. It felt like permission to explore, to wonder about what things mean and why they are the way they are. Life is a galaxy of choices, and I’ve grown to love watching a collection of choices manifest on a massive screen.

The way you spend your time is a choice. Thank you for choosing to spend some of it here

Next Week

Our first world to explore comes from Australia. A tiny budget, a former doctor, and a first-time screenwriter breathe life into a man from a world of fire, asphalt, and pain.

His name is Max.

Thank you for your time.

Stills provided by FilmGrab.

Please consider subscribing for free to receive new content weekly. You can also support this newsletter through the print store.